


niche.

by CopperCaravan



Category: Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Fenera Mahariel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oghren and Anders have a talk while the Warden climbs a bookshelf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	niche.

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot I never put this up, but here it is. Also Nate/Mahariel pre-relationship in the background because no one is safe from my nonsense.   
> I keep telling myself I'm going to go back over this for an overhaul but... So I figured I might as well go ahead and put it up.

Oghren finishes off his first mug and leans back in his chair, watching.

Mahariel points at a book on a shelf twice as tall as she is and Nathaniel reaches up to get it for her, holds it right out of her reach. Not immune to her charms at all, that one.

Nor she to his, apparently.

And, of course, Oghren’s almost-sulking draws the mage like a beacon in the dark.

The chair next to him is pulled away from the table with a screech and Anders falls heavily into the seat, letting his mug clatter against the table. “How’s it feel?” Anders asks, pouring himself a drink (which Oghren knows he will not even sip).

Oghren only refills his own mug with a _hmph_. He’s not usually one for being chatty, least of all when he doesn’t even know what the boy’s talking about.

“Being passed over for Lieutenant,” the mage explains. “After fighting beside her longer than any of us. And for the man who tried to kill her barely a month ago, no less. How’s that feel?”

How it feels, huh? He’s got a hunch that’s not really what Anders is asking. Things are never simple with this one, never quite what the kid tries to make out that they are.

Boy’s a mess; that’s the truth of it. Clambering for attention and deflecting it in the same breath. Throwing fire and lightning like the fiercest man on the field and jumping back shy as a mistreated pup from even a friendly clap on the back. Doing more than is needed when he knows she’s looking, but making a point of _constantly_ reminding them all that he doesn’t want to be here. Yep, boy’s a whole lot of mixed up.

Fair enough, though, Oghren supposes, all things considered. Ain’t a one of them that’s here that ain’t a whole lot of things—messy or otherwise. He looks back up, away from his mug and toward Mahariel and Nathaniel, still perusing books, completely unaware of anything else. If she’d been that distracted in the beginning, it’d have been easy enough for the Howe to kill her. Still might be, really; it’s far too soon to tell.

So Oghren watches.

“Ain’t like that,” he finally says, uncertain if he’s humouring Anders or actually curious as to the boy’s motivations. Oghren tips his head toward the two of them, across the room by the bookshelf, chatting and teasing as though the world isn’t ending all over again. “End of the Blight, we hit Denerim. She went up that tower, left me on the ground.”

“Ah,” Anders says, as though he already understands. It’s not escaped Oghren’s notice that he hasn’t had any of his ale. “So then, she never—”

“Ain’t like that either,” he says, before the mage can continue.

Oghren’s a _yes_ or _no_ kind of man. A _hmph_ and a _grunt_ and a _growl_ kind of man. An _only mentions feelings when he’s really roaring drunk and probably not even then_ kind of man. But then there’s this boy, this kid fresh out of a Tower, scared of his own shadow, craving _something_ and tossing fire and snark at friends and enemies alike. And maybe—just _maybe,_ mind you—Mahariel’s rubbed off on Oghren, just a bit.

“Girl’s got a knack for putting people where they need to be,” he says, and downs his second drink in a few deep pulls. He’s going to need it, he thinks. “I was a warrior, in Orzammar, before everything went to the sodding dirt for me. A rung below nobility, proud, strategic, strong. And then I was a sodding drunk with a mad wife who took my house, my dignity, and my…” _And my heart,_ he doesn’t finish. He sure as shit ain’t near that drunk. Not after just two mugs. He pours himself another.

“And you _needed_ to be as far away from her as possible, then,” Anders says, voice thick with sarcasm, but face drawn with anxious curiosity. That’s another thing Oghren’s noticed (and Mahariel, too): the boy can talk like he’s not thinking a damn thing other than _fuck it,_ but his face is as open a book as Oghren’s ever seen.

Across the room, Mahariel’s given up on having Nathaniel fetch books for her and has instead (and not all that surprisingly, really) decided to climb the bookshelf herself. _That ain’t gonna work out,_ Oghren thinks and, judging from his expression, Howe agrees.

“What she _needed_ was somebody on the ground, somebody she knew could run things for her while she was worrying about a damned dragon,” Oghren says, trying to keep the usual gruffness out of his voice (considerate—gentle—that ain’t something he’s used to being). “And what _I_ needed was to—” Aeducan’s balls, he’s not had enough to drink. He downs the third cup and, before he can reach out to pour another, Anders slides over his own untouched mug. Oghren gives him a curt nod before downing it too. “What I needed was to get back to the man I used to be, least a bit.”

Anders isn’t quite convinced. Ain’t about Oghren no more—never really was though.

“And she thinks her would-be assassin _needs_ to be the one watching her back,” he says, eyes narrowed at the two of them.

“Thinking ain’t really her strong point,” Oghren says quietly. Anders lets out a quiet, breathy laugh. She’s a clever one, that girl. Got a grip on words and people like nothing he’s ever seen, but strategy? Nah. One day he figures it’ll get her killed, but seems ain’t much with her ever about what she _thinks_ so much as it about what she _feels._ He’d follow her gut instinct through the Deep Roads with a blind-fold on. More than that, too, her and Anders, they got more in common than they probably realize: trying so hard to keep everybody outside, wishing somebody’d push through, not quite knowing that they draw folks in. Sodding fools, both of them. Need… well, need something, don’t they?

“Nah, what she needs is to know what side he’s on,” Oghren finishes. “And what she thinks he needs is a reason.”

“A reason for what?”

“Anything.” Oghren watches her toss down a few books, pick through a few more.

During the Blight, he’d been a little later to the party than the rest of her little crew, but even at the end, he remembers the focus she put in on their off-time, remembers her and Leliana sitting by the fire, sounding out letters and words in the trade tongue (and even a bit of Orlesian, though she was never much good at that). Girl practically consumes words—books, wanted posters, shaperate tomes. Hell, she’d dragged him drunk and mad into the Shaperate and asked him about all kinds of shit, words she couldn’t make out, things they hadn’t translated. Those had been some very long afternoons for him.

Anders scoffs. Not one for sentiment either, maybe? But when Oghren looks at the kid, all huffy and staring daggers at Howe’s back, Oghren knows it ain’t sentimentality what’s got him put off.

“And so what about you?” Anders asks, elbows on the table and fingers laced together so tight that they’re white. “You just get shoved out of the way so he can _feel better_?”

And Oghren knows it still ain’t about him, ain’t really about Howe either.

Mahariel’s a damned dragon-slayer. A growing legend. Hero even, though he’d never say that to her face. But don’t a bit of that matter much, not to the people who _know_ her. Not to the people that gotta a spot next to her. Knowing where they fit, where they can belong if they want to—watching her kill a dragon’s a hell of a sight but it’s got nothing on having a _place_.

“I’m right where I need to be,” Oghren says. “Eyes on the man that tried to kill my girl.”

Anders’ll figure it out.


End file.
